


A Temporal Folly

by ChaosKirin



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Character Death, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-07-31 17:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20118796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaosKirin/pseuds/ChaosKirin
Summary: Science often causes great advances in our lives. It also has the potential to go very wrong. And traveling through time is extremely unforgiving and imprecise.





	1. Staged

Brian felt a... a _gravelling _behind his ears. No, that wasn't the right word. Neither was "static" or "buzzing" or "itching." The discomfort spread backward toward his visual cortex, causing him to see flashes in the darkness of the pre-concert stadium.   
  
He heard footsteps--he thought. Maybe not exactly real ones, but subconscious ones? What the hell was a subconscious footstep? Something cemented in unreality, perhaps? A hallucination brought on by their rigorous schedule? Or even dehydration! That had to be it. "Can we stall?" he asked.

The last-minute tuning of the instruments ceased with a squeal. The audience cheered. They thought it was time.   
  
"How long?" someone asked.

"Just..." A flashlight glowed in the darkness. Brian held up his hand to block the beam. "A while."

"Eh." Roger appeared from the shadows, not quite hobbling, but walking in that stooped, relaxed manner of the aged. When _did _they get so old? "S'all right. Not like we ever start on time anyway, yeah?" He clapped Brian on the shoulder. "I gotta have a piss anyhow. Back in a bit."

"Such a refined British gentleman," Adam said, smiling. The flashlight caught on his glittery eye shadow and in shimmered through the murk. Had the flashlight been just a little brighter, it might have even created a little disco ball effect.

Freddie would have loved Adam.

"He's Roger," Brian replied. "He's never been known for--ah, well. Lots of things. But _tact. _Roger hates tact."

Adam dragged a crate over from offstage and sat down. The tuning resumed on the backup guitars as another cheer went up from the audience. "You all right?"

Brian scratched behind his head, trying to banish the numbness. Fingers tangling in his hair, he gave it a tug, which only brought momentary relief. "Here," he said, slinging the Red Special off his shoulder. "Put this somewhere."

Adam stared blankly, holding the antique guitar as if simply turning too fast would cause it to disintegrate. Brian found most people handled the old girl like she was made of porcelain, but she'd stand up to a lot more than people gave her credit for. Curling his nose, Adam managed to eke out, "Uh. Okay."

It had to be dehydration, Brian thought. With their day off yesterday, he had plenty of rest, and even managed to avoid doing the random touristy things he so loved. Okay, so he'd had a bit to drink. Just a couple glasses of merlot around dinner time, though. And one before bed. And he always drank water between. Because a tour was no excuse to let his exercise routine lapse, he also made sure to work out for at least an hour.

_When did they get so old, _the thought came again, intruding on his diagnosis. Finding a cooler for the stage hands, he dug through it until he found an unopened bottle of Dasani.

"Wait!" One of the handlers said. Alecia, Brian thought. The one responsible for making sure his dressing room had all the proper amenities and snacks. "We can get your brand from your room!"   
  
Brian shook his head, regretting the motion as a cycle of dizziness passed through him, all the way to--it seemed--his toes. Twisting off the cap of the bottle with a satisfying _snp, _he tipped it back, drinking his fill until a rivulet trickled down his chin.

"Brian, your shirt--" Alecia said.

Brian held up a hand. The _gravelling _was bothering him again. "It's all right. They won't notice in the nosebleeds."   
  
Which was where most of the crowd would be.   
  
Alecia gave up, shrugged, and wandered off.

Roger eventually shouldered past him, on his way back from the loo. A few steps past, he turned, tilting his head at Brian. "You feel off?" he asked.

"Yeah. You?"

"I feel old," was Roger's answer. Which was the perfect thing for Roger to say, because Brian was feeling the same way. "Suddenly. Not like looking in a mirror and thinking 'oh, I think I've lost another hair.'" Roger paused, narrowed his eyes, and added, "Not that you'd notice. It'd just catch in the other ones and weave itself into a biological toupee. I'm guessing most of those hairs on your head are still from the nineteen-bloody-seventies!"   
  
Brian sighed.

"Uh. But yes," Roger replied. "Yes, I feel like a--like a--" he gestured in front of his eyes, squishing up his face. "A _thing." _

"Like gravelling."

"Not the word I'd use. More like a _pebbling _if you'd ask me. Whatever it is, it's uncomfortable."

"Guys." It was their bass player, Neil, who appeared in the wing. His face seemed wrong somehow. Unhinged. Blurred. No--his face was right. It was perfectly right. _It was just wrong. _"We gotta go on. They're telling us they'll charge us for the extra electricity if we don't."

"We can afford it," Roger muttered, his voice flat. "Go tell 'em we'll be up in a minute."

Once Neil was gone, Roger turned to Brian. "Was that weird to you? Did something weird just happen?"

Brian declined to answer.

Roger nodded, a worried frown crossing his face for a fraction of a second. He turned, following Neil back to the stage.   
  
Brian went to take another sip of water, finding the bottle mysteriously empty.

\---

Footsteps--actual ones this time--dragged through the backstage halls. One in front of the other. He could do this. He could make it.

Something beautiful existed between the moments of life and death; he'd gotten a mere glimpse of it. Enough to know he wasn't ready yet, that he had more time, somehow, within his rather tumultuous life.

It shouldn't have been as bad as it was, of course. But things went wrong. As wrong as they could go. They predicted glitches and hangups before the whole experiment started, but they couldn't have anticipated...  
  
He leaned on a wall, the paint catching on his rayon shirt and chipping, flaking downward. Little white speckles--tragedies from previous encounters with the wall--sparkled up from the floor like wayward stars.   
  
Stars should not be _down._  
  
Momentary vertigo caused him to heave, but he managed to hold his dinner.

It would have to be here, wouldn't it? It would have to be. Something would have to exist to draw him back, or else the entire experiment would have been a mistake. A failure.   
  
It was a failure anyway.   
  
As he neared the stage, someone finally stepped in front of him. He didn't know who. "You can't--" she started, then her eyes widened and she shuffled out of the way.

Even though his legs felt like lead, he climbed the stairs anyway, plucking a bass from the rack just offstage. They were playing the opening chords to "Now I'm Here," and common courtesy demanded he at least try to join in.

He couldn't remember, though. He felt so addled...

Were he thinking clearly, maybe he would have waited. But after the trek he made, it felt like he hadn't slept in years. It never occurred to him that there would be an audience, even though he heard them screaming as the lights rose around them.   
  
And he stepped onto the stage.

He lost his grip on the bass and it clattered to the floor.

The music continued for just another couple moments until everyone realized what was going on; even the crowd fell silent.

"The house lights!" Someone called. A gentle, enduring voice. Unchanged even after all these years. Brian. "Get the house lights up!"

They flickered on.

Halfheartedly, he tried to pick up the bass as Brian approached, but he couldn't seem to get a grip around the neck. A chill tingled up his spine as he realized thousands of people were staring at him.

Brian took him by the shoulders, turning him this way and that. From the drum riser, Roger tore off his sunglasses and narrowed his eyes.

Some kid with black hair stared from left stage.

"John?" Brian said. "What are you doing here?"


	2. Aged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John seems to have been involved in some interesting shenanigans. He'd really rather nap, though.

_There is something ethereal_  
_In the spaces between._  
_ Two lives choked by a grievous misjudgment_  
_ A billion-trillion souls cradled gently out of existence_  
_ And yet their folly_  
_ Shines as bright as the sun..._

"It's okay, John, we'll reschedule the concert," said Brian, pacing in front of the cracked-leather couch. "They understand. They understand."  
  
"I'm more concerned about the elephant in the room," Roger replied, eyes narrowing at John, who lay sprawled across all three cushions. Once in a while, he'd open his eyes to check his surroundings or to reply to a question, but other than that, he was pretty still. The _weird part _wasn't his mere presence, though... Roger gestured. "You want to tell us why you're--" He couldn't quite put it into words. Well, he could. But it sounded absolutely ridiculous, and he couldn't possibly be seeing what he was seeing. The man on the couch was _clearly _John Deacon, yet he seemed to have _aged backward. _"Am I going crazy? You're seeing this, right?"

John laughed, the sound catching in his throat and turning into a cough. "I'm tired, Rog." To demonstrate, he closed his eyes again, pulling the cold compress down from his forehead and over his eyes.

"Can you tell us anything?" Brian asked.

"Made a mistake," was all John said.

Brian looped his arm through Roger's elbow and pulled him away, whispering, "at least that explains what we were feeling."

"It doesn't explain it at all!" Roger glanced back at John, whose arm slowly slipped off the couch and toward the floor. "It doesn't explain anything. I mean, he's not a spring chicken, as the Americans would say. But look at him. _Look." _

"I know," Brian replied. "What would you place him at? Thirty? Forty?"

"Always hard to tell with him." Roger rubbed the back of his neck. "He's got some grey, so..."

"I can hear you old goats talking about me," John grumbled. "It's loud enough in here with your stage guys everywhere--"

"We're exactly the age we should be," Roger argued. But he felt old. He _felt it. _In his heart.

"Old goats," John repeated.

"Well, clearly he's done something," Brian said, voice just a little quieter. He shook his head in disbelief, pale curls bouncing around his face.

"Not sure what you think he may have gone and did," Roger said. "It's not like you can go to the local chemist and buy a pill that'll shave thirty years off your life." He scoffed. "If that was the case, I'da done it already."

"So we're going with forty," Brian mused.

It took Roger a second to figure out that Brian was still talking about John's age. "It was an _estimate. _Why are you counting, anyway?"

"Because numbers are real, and this isn't."

Fair enough.

Roger dragged Brian past the partition their road crew had set up to give John a little privacy. Immediately outside it were people trying to peer through the gaps to get a glimpse of the reclusive John Deacon. They glanced up guiltily as Roger appeared, and Roger shooed them off with a grumbled quasi-threat to their manhoods.

Out here, outside of the little bubble in which they'd contained their friend, was chaos.

Their bodyguards were keeping a couple well-dressed women at bay. One of them was holding a microphone and repeatedly calling, "Brian May! Roger Taylor!" as if their first names wouldn't have sufficed. One of them held out a microphone like a backstage pass, as if that would gain her the access she desired. Roger grunted.

Brian gently reached out, his hand just brushing the arm of one of their sound crew as he rushed past. "Can you do what you can to get them to leave?" he asked, nodding toward the reporters. "I know it's not your job..."

"It's all right, Brian," he said. "We're trying, trust me."

"I do, Jacob."

The kid changed course, heading toward the bodyguards.

"You still know all their names," Roger observed with a chuckle. "Sometimes I forget my own lyrics. You still know each and every person that comes through our entourage, don't you?"

"I try. Nowadays I have to make flashcards." Brian arched his silver eyebrows, giving Roger a pointed look.

Relieved by the slight levity, Roger allowed himself to laugh.

Brian's cellphone rang. Or rather, it buzzed a bit from his pocket. He tried to keep it on him, even on stage, which Roger never understood. "You and _Instagram," _he muttered.

Brian shrugged, checking the screen. His expression quickly soured to a scowl. "John's wife," he said.

With sudden alacrity that betrayed his prior exhaustion, John crashed around the partition, knocking it over. It slammed onto the cement floor with an ear-splitting bang. "Don't answer it!" he cried.

Brian peered between the screen and John, then ignored John's protest and answered the call. After a brief greeting, he asked, "Everything okay, dear?"  
  
John returned to the couch, slumping down onto it and resting his face in his hands.

"Are you sure?" Brian asked, looking over his shoulder. "Right, yes, it's just--" Another long pause. Roger could see the gears turning behind those concerned, alert eyes, then he added, "I'm so terribly sorry. Of course. No, Roger's here. I'll--I'll tell him. And call me if you need anything. We'll be home straight away."

Roger tilted his head as Brian hung up. "Well?" he asked.

Brian stood, stunned, his expression blank. His jaw hung just slightly open as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't. After some anxious shifting, he returned to the couch and sat down next to John, and though he spoke to John, Brian met Roger's eyes. "She called to tell us you'd passed away," he said.

"_What?" _Roger demanded.

But John just nodded, as if he'd been expecting it. "I wanted to explain before--fuck. God dammit. Look, I don't know how to say..."

"You're not dead, though. Clearly." Brian put a hand on his shoulder.

"No. I mean yes. I am. I'm not. But there's--" John bit his lip. "There'll be a... There's a body."

He looked so defeated that Roger couldn't even say something brash and annoying, like _You'd better start explaining this right now! _He wanted to. Because out of every emotion one could experience, Roger hated confusion the most, especially because nothing at all about any of this made sense.

As if sensing Roger's irritation, Brian held out a hand and mouthed "just wait."

Needing something to occupy himself, Roger managed to right the partition, setting it a bit farther away from the couch than before. He stood at the perimeter, making sure no one came close enough to hear. Even after that, it took John many long minutes before he finally spoke.  
  
He looked up, eyes wet with stress and unshed tears, and said, "There were two of us."


	3. Disengaged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for an explanation. Don't worry. It's not a good one. I need to keep you all in suspense.

_In the miniscule corridors between reality_  
_Even within the atom-thin breaches between universes_  
_ Dwells every pathway linked together_  
_ In an infinite tangle of inevitability_  
_ From which every Being must select between_  
_ Survival or Extinction_

Brian and Roger stared. After a moment, Brian even got up, pacing a few steps away to stand next to Roger so he could _stare with even more intensity. _

John hated when they did that. With all their combined years, they could have at least figured _that _out at the very least. Not that John was any younger than they were. Not really.

"There's actually more of me," John said, averting his eyes from theirs. "A lot more. I didn't meet them all, but in a universe cluster like ours, there's at least a dozen. But I guess it's only the two of us that mattered. It was... 1994 I think, that I figured it out. We, rather. Him and me."

"You know," Roger interrupted. "I just have this feeling he's going to tell us something _ridiculous _and _insane. _Is it weird that I already believe it?"

Brian shook his head. "No. After all, I should be devastated, shouldn't I? One of our brothers just died, and I'm standing here like it didn't mean--"

"He wasn't..." John started. "He wasn't your--we were brothers?"

He couldn't quite explain the expression on Brian's face, but it contained an array of confusion, concern, and devastation. A pain which John often saw--once upon a time--and never understood until now. Meanwhile, Roger's eyes were narrowed almost accusingly. Between the two of them, Brian had more book intelligence than he knew what to do with, while Roger's imagination was already putting things together, making that jump from reality to the absurd.

"Of course, John," Brian said.

As much as that made his heart soar, it hurt John to hear it. Not because he disagreed, but because he'd been alone for _so long, _all because he went chasing after one person at the expense of others. He regretted it, least of all because the whole thing failed with only the quietest whisper of a fanfare to indicate there'd been any disturbance at all.

Despite thinking for _years _about how he'd tell them what happened, John found his well-rehearsed explanation completely inefficient. Ridiculously hot-winded and overstated. Roger and Brian didn't need to know every single miniscule iota of information, and they wouldn't want it spelled out like a _once-upon-a-time _where the end left its listeners disturbed and uneasy.

Slumping, the ugly orange couch creaking beneath him, John rubbed at his temples. The lights flickered a bit. One of the stage crew asked if they were expecting storms.

The Cliff's Notes version of the story would be better.

"You can't time-travel in your own universe," he said.

"Time travel," Roger replied. It was more of a statement than a question.

"Me and--Well, _me," _John went on, "figured out how to communicate through universes. If you know how to build it, you can create a sim fragment that measures reality--" He found himself slipping into the expositional, unnecessary dialogue. "We switched places. He was from a universe where Queen never took off, and Freddie Mercury never... Uh. Freddie was still alive. In his universe."

"That's ridiculous," Roger said. "Queen not taking off? Now I _know _this isn't--"

Brian elbowed him. Roger grumbled and hunched his shoulders.

"It didn't. And the other me wasn't in a band. He didn't know any of the songs. He could still play, but he..." John trailed off again. "I think he wanted it. He was different from me, enough that I noticed. But it never worked out for him."

"Back to the point, though," Brian said. The lights flickered again. "You went to get Freddie--a different Freddie--and bring him back here."

John nodded. "He wouldn't have known our songs, but he could have learned..." He shook his head, waving his arms to banish the memories of his initial hopes. "It was stupid. It was a mistake. See, _time _is kind of like a video game. It's written in a certain order. It's coded a specific way. And even though you can't time-travel in your own universe, you can sort of... pull yourself out of your own timeline and put yourself back down in another one. At any point. Past or future. We just didn't realize that when we did that, we sort of glitched the game. It forgot how to run. And where John went--the other one--things continued as normal, right up until he died. But I went _backward_ in time. We didn't realize you couldn't do that."

"What happened?" Roger prompted.

John closed his eyes. He'd been so lonely. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about what happened. His mistake. His purgatory.

"John?" Brian asked.

"I'll tell you. I promise. Just... not now."

Brian nodded. "It's all right. Maybe when you've gotten some sleep--"

"There a whole 'nother problem we gotta worry about," Roger grumbled, pointing at John. How had he gotten so _gruff and brash _in his older years? "He's supposed to be dead. Not... here, like he's come right out of the past for a chat and a cup of tea."

"Yes. It'll be a problem," John said. "I guess I theorized that I'd rubber band back here when the other John passed. I'm... surprised he kept up the secret the whole time. Kept it from you two."

Roger and Brian glanced at each other, then looked at the floor in almost perfect synchronization. "John really didn't talk to anyone much," Brian said, then amended. "The... other... John I suppose. We hadn't heard from him in years. Sometimes he'd email, but he stopped taking my calls years ago."

"Mine, too," Roger said. "Once I got through to him pretending to be a telemarketer. Got a--what are they called? They say it in the movies. A burner phone! Yeah, the ones you pay for minutes on. Was good to hear his voice."

Brian rolled his eyes. "And?"

"He hung up on me when he realized who it was."

John put his face in his hands. Not only had he abandoned his friends, but the replacement completely cut them out. He must have been terrified, though. Unable to connect with these people he'd never known, he isolated himself entirely.

He felt the couch sink next to him. Peering through his fingers, he saw Brian there again. "It's all right," he said, leaning against John's shoulder. Unable to help it, John wrapped his arms around Brian in a tight hug. Maybe they hadn't ever been super close, but it was _so good _to hear his voice again. Brian returned the gesture.

He smelled of light cologne. Of travel--the inside of garment bags and the sterile scent of plastic. But also of life and sweat and vitality. Roger sat down on the other side, awkwardly draping one arm over them both. John had to chuckle as Brian sniffled.

"We missed you, John," Brian said. "It'll be a little weird--"

"A _little?" _Roger demanded. "Look at him. He's practically a baby!"

"A _little," _Brian repeated. "But it'll be good to have you back."

"And my family?" John asked. The lights flickered again. The electricity buzzed angrily before they came back on.

"He's still--" Roger started, then paused. "Feels weird to say it. I'm not quite sure my brain believes it yet. The... other John... He took care of them."

Bittersweet. But at least he had that. At least his wife and kids were taken care of.

The lights flashed again, becoming impossibly bright for just a second, before the whole arena went dark.


	4. Dispatched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit of a doozy. Check the tags for a heads-up warning.

_A rip appears in the Time-Space shroud_  
_A gouge traveling downward through each layer_  
_Dragging with it the emptiness of Truth:_  
_ That we are all but a single decision_  
_Away from our own demise_  
_And the destruction of all we hold dear_

**2019**

Panic twisted inside Brian as every feeling he ever experienced overwhelmed his senses. His life danced before his eyes. Triumphs. Defeats. Depression. Elation.  
  
Then it stopped, and he found himself... elsewhere.

Dizzy, he stumbled over his own feet and fell to the floor.

Even through the absence of light, he could see clearly as ever. A blue glow seemed to emanate from every surface--from the very stage upon which he'd fallen, to every empty chair out in the arena.

How had he gotten _here? _

The instruments were gone. Of the people who'd crowded the arena less than an hour ago, there was no sign. No trash decorated the floor--not even a single paper cup.

But it was still _their stage. _Queen's stage. From the elaborate multimedia display panels to their complicated lighting rig far, far above. Every piece of it shimmered as if sterile and pristine, like this space had never been utilized for its intended purpose.

Again, Brian tried to wrap his head around how he'd gotten here. As a logical science-minded individual, he disbelieved in the paranormal, but he had no other explanation. One moment he sat on the couch next to John and Roger, and then, with a singular electrical short...

Perhaps he'd sleep-walked. He'd passed out and sleep-walked--no. _Somnambulated! _Ah, he'd always wanted to use that word in a serious manner! Yes, he'd passed out and somnambulated to the stage! How terribly exciting and worrisome!

Well, first things first. He'd have to get back to the others. Perhaps the building suffered a power surge which knocked everyone out cold. It was a much better explanation than...

Than...

Well, it was the only explanation at all.

Hopefully the others were okay and not too worried about him. He'd just head off stage right, and it'd be a quick jaunt down to that back-stage area next to the dressing rooms. Why hadn't they gone into the dressing rooms to chat, instead of sitting on that old, must couch? Hah! The decisions worried people made--

Something sharp, something terrifying, pierced through Brian's neck.

His eyes widened as the creature showed itself...

\---

_Listen..._

\---

**1994**

"Well, if we're going to do this..." Theta-John muttered, staring through the void at his twin.

"We are," replied Lambda-John. "We are. We can. But there's..."

"No going back. Right," Theta said. "Synchronize watches in three... two..."

Both watches beeped at the same time, and Lambda stepped through the portal.

For the first time, they were face to face, and Theta wasn't ashamed to admit he spent a long time staring at his other. Despite nearly every postulation on time travel stating that one couldn't meet _himself, _here they were, together, defying theoretical physics! Technically, of course, they weren't the same people. They were _parallel people, _from parallel universes, who just happened to be almost exactly the same.

"Okay, so this is... pretty cool," Lambda said, managing a half-smile.

"Right, well." Theta turned, searching for his precisely-typed book of instructions. "You'll probably need these. But mostly you can wing it. The kids' favorite foods are in there. On account of us figuring out they're different and all."

Lambda took the pages, flipping through them. "We'll be fine. It's just for a few days. Then Freddie can come back and..."

"You don't like him much, do you?" Theta asked.

Lambda said nothing. "No, but you do. It's a win-win for both of us. I get a taste of the spotlight, and you get your lead singer back."

It turned out that Queen was a fluke. In their entire Reality-Cluster--a term both Theta and Lambda used to describe their layered universes--only Theta-Universe managed to succeed. Lambda's never got off the ground at all. And in Iota... Well.

John died quite early in Iota, and it was the end of the dream.

Theta checked his watch. "We have about four minutes before us being in the same universe causes problems."

"Okay. Okay, here." Lambda quickly went to work, painstakingly entering the coordinates on the old Apple IIe. "This is where I think--"

"You _think?" _Theta spat. Then he amended: "Sorry, I'm nervous."

"It's okay. You'll get there just fine. Just remember... We'll have to program you back in time just a bit or else you'll come out on the other side of the world."

Theta never liked that idea. Catching a plane wasn't that hard, but to minimize the risk, they both decided it would be for the best if John and Freddie ended up as close to each other as possible. And in the Iota universe, Freddie lived in the United States.

He must have looked dubious. "It's fine," Lambda said. "Iota-Universe is _right between us. _If something goes wrong, it'd be minor."

"Right." Theta checked his watch again. Time was up. "I gotta go."

The television screen they used as their portal once more opened up into a black void, the swirling tendrils reaching out toward the warmth of human contact. Theta allowed the darkness to caress his arm, trying not to pull away when he felt the chill.

Instead, he stepped into it, and into another world.

\---

**2019**

Brian felt his life draining away. With his consciousness fading, he could barely move his eyes downward to watch the streams of red dripping to the floor. In the periphery of his vision, he noticed his white hair was no longer white.

The eyeless creature stood statue-still, its toothy, glowing white mouth opened in what might have been a grin. The thing resembled embers, only in reverse. Plates across the surface of its body glowed with an intense, painful blue, while cracks between each segment were black as midnight.

It would have been pretty, had it not had its tendril lodged in his neck.  
  
_Rest, _it said.

His strength leaving him, Brian surrendered to the inevitable. Striving for one last, longing sensation of breath, he inhaled his last.


	5. Detached

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Same thing as Chapter Four, with 100% more Roger! And also some other terrible creatures.

_How we all mourn the broken_   
_Holding onto the slimmest ledge_   
_Our fingers slipping by the second_   
_Drawn to the inexorable truth_   
_That to change the fates of the never-ending masses_   
_Is to destroy the fabric that binds us all_

**2019**

Roger crashed into his vanity, upended his chair, then fell to the floor. Winded, he fought against gravity to regain his feet, momentarily blanking on the logistics of _up _and down; in the end, he succeeded only in rolling onto his side.

_What was he doing in his dressing room? _

He was too fucking _old _for this _shit!_

Roger would admit that, unlike Brian (whose feet were firmly on good ol' Terra Firma), he often had his head in the clouds and had no qualms about breathing the vapors. So he wasn't surprised when his mind skipped past every logical explanation like _dreams _or _hallucinations _and went straight to _alien abduction _as an assured reality_. _It sure felt how he imagined an alien abduction would go, although the completely empty dressing room unnerved him a bit, and the blue light oozing out of the walls like a thoroughly squeezed snail was an odd touch.   
  
Had he _acquired the good shit? _

It said a lot about him that his second guess was "drugs," Roger supposed.

"Right. Up on the feet then," he told himself. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he reintroduced himself to the concept of three dimensions and peeled himself off the floor. His joints popped and cracked in protest.

As he tried to regain his bearings, he squinted at the weird gecko-like beast, stuck by its little spade-toes up in the farthest corner of Roger's dressing room. As calmly as he accepted his alien abduction, he took this in stride, only partly because his very brain seemed to have short-circuited. The rest was because he kinda hoped he'd made first contact before his dear friend and space nerd, Brian May. Wouldn't _that _just rankle!

"Where _are your eyes?" _Roger inquired at the toxic blue creature. It grinned with a maw full of sharp, irritating teeth.

In answer, it shuffled toward him, hissing like a leaky tire. Alas, it seemed he'd have to fight the thing. So much for peaceful first contact! How could he possibly fight this cow-sized creature, though, with its lack of eyes and weird suction-cup toes and its feral, white-rimmed grin?

He did what any blue-blooded Brit would do. He bunched it square in the mouth.

The thing was fast. In the blink of an eye, it had Roger's arm crushed between its teeth. He tried to cry out, but the creature already had itself wrapped around him; consequently, the only sound he could produce was a less-than-intimidating squeak.   
  
Every time he gasped, the creature constricted tighter.

\---

_Witness. _  
  
\---

**1993**

The alarm buzzed. John reached over and snoozed it.

Five minutes later, the radio started playing Sinatra, despite John ripping out the FM transmitter just the night before. Grabbing the entire clock-radio, he launched it across the hotel room, where it shattered against a mirror.

Then, for good measure, he sat up in bed and gave the lamp a good solid kick.   
  
He'd be billed for it, and probably even kicked out of the hotel. Maybe he'd sleep in a ditch tonight for the thrill of it. None of that mattered, though, since he'd wake up in the same bed, at the exact same time, annoyed once again by _Come Fly With Me _through a tinny, sub-standard speaker. He glanced at his watch.

"Three. Two. One."   
  
As he pointed at the door, somebody rapped on it and called "Room service!"   
  
"Fuck off!" John growled.

He'd seen _Groundhog Day_ back in his own Theta-Universe just before traversing the portal. The coincidence wasn't lost on him. Who knew such a temporal anomaly wouldn't be caused by driving off a cliff, but by _mucking about in the past!_

The most annoying thing was that he couldn't write anything down, because everything would disappear when the day started over. _Infuriating! _He had so many questions, and limited memory with which to remember them, or their answers.

"What is this," he grumbled, sliding out of bed. "Sixty? Seventy? A thousand?"

Every morning, he made a tick on the wall. The next day, of course, it was gone.

It was at least sixty, though. He knew that. And in those sixty days, he'd pursued every opportunity to speak to Freddie, but this universe's version was reclusive and distrustful. Once, frustrated with the lack of positive response, John tried to drag him off so they could talk, and ultimately ended up in jail.

It didn't matter. By then, he knew he'd wake up the next morning safe in the hotel bedroom.

Today would be different, though, John mused as he brushed his teeth. Humming a cheerful ditty that was definitely _not Sinatra, _he pulled the hairdryer out of its wall holster and used it to smash the mirror. If his actions didn't matter, if everything would reset in 24 hours, why shouldn't he take out his frustrations on inanimate structures?   
  
He spit the toothpaste out in the middle of the floor.   
  
"It's a glitch," he told himself. John often spoke to himself now, since he had no friends in this universe. He technically didn't exist in it, which meant no one recognized him, which meant he had no friends. "We fucked up the code. It was too much. We shouldn't have--"   
  
Today would be _different. _

Over the past few weeks--relatively speaking--John worked on finding the key to fixing everything. By the very nature of time-space, the machine he and his other self built also had to exist in this world. He should have entered into the Iota-Universe at the machine's location, but the glitch interfered and spat him out elsewhere. After triangulating all possible points of interest, he found it in the basement of an abandoned school only a half mile away from the hotel.   
  
The proximity made sense. And if he was right, which he'd find out today, the location of the machine, the hotel, and _Freddie _would create a perfect line.

That revelation didn't matter much before, but now it made sense. It was the continuum trying to correct itself, pointing the way to solve the problem. If John could get Freddie to the machine, his presence would act as a battery, activating it and allowing everyone to go home. He had to. At this point, he teetered just on the verge of madness. Living the same day over and over couldn't have been healthy for anyone.

\---  
  
Today, he'd try a different tactic. Today... Today it would work.

It was sad in a way, how meeting up with Freddie had become routine. The first few times John saw he old friend, he couldn't even approach for the tears in his eyes. And Freddie looked so _whole and healthy. _Standing in the presence of Queen's legendary singer made John's heart soar!

But while this Freddie had similar mannerisms and a rather sizable ego, he was reclusive, bitter, and almost hopeless. In the rare occasion John managed to find the right combination of words and platitudes to get this version of Freddie to talk, every word dripped with regret and bile. After Queen failed, Freddie's life folded in on itself. He repressed his sexuality. Settled down with Mary. Lived miserably.   


John had doubts about taking this Freddie back to the Theta-Universe, but he still waited in the same park every morning just to catch a glimpse of his old friend. Sometimes they'd talk. Sometimes they'd fight. Today, John intended to test his theory on the machine.

At eleven o'clock and four minutes, Freddie sauntered past the park fountain.

As casually as he could, John pushed himself off the bench, falling into step just behind Freddie. He tried his best to act as if he had somewhere to go and just happened to be traveling in the same direction.

Astute, though, Freddie glanced over his shoulder. "Are you following me, darling?"

Every day the same question.

"Yes, actually," John replied. Before Freddie could get angry, though, he regurgitated a bit of trivia Freddie gave him just a couple days prior: "I saw you at the Itherian last night. You sing, right? Was that you?"

Yesterday, the spiel was too desperate and overstated. Today, John reined in his anxiety and evened his tone.

It worked. Freddie's face lit up, every trace of doubt vanishing. "Hey, yeah! I don't remember seeing you there." 

_Damn. _A new variable. He could ruin the entire day if he answered wrong. Crossing his fingers in his pocket for luck, he tried, "Oh, I don't like to be around people. I kinda stay toward the back when I go to those things."

"There were only eight people there, dear," Freddie replied, arching an eyebrow.

"Eight too many," John muttered, trying his best to let his anxiety float to the surface.

"Oh, you've got it bad, haven't you? Poor dear. Well, did you like the set?"

If John continued along this conversational path, Freddie would ask which song John liked the best, and John had no answer for that. At that point, Freddie would see right through him and the day would be a wash. "Loved it," he said. And before Freddie could ask the wrong question, he quickly added, "I actually have a little place in the basement of an old school just down the block. I could use a regular. You want to see?"

Was that too creepy? It sounded too creepy. He'd have to work on his delivery for tomorrow.

To his surprise, though, Freddie said "Lead the way!"

\---

"Interesting that you had to break the lock," Freddie grunted as John led him down the steps. Every one of them creaked underfoot with a squeal that sounded like each board was about to snap in half. Had they been that loud the other times John came down here? They must have been. He was just nervous and his senses were playing tricks on him.

"Ah, it's a work in progress," John said, whisking the dust-discolored sheet off the machine. His heart hammered as he turned to Freddie, who was staring at the contraption with a mix of disgust and curiosity.

"Is this what you intend to use for music?" Freddie asked. "Good God, is that a broken _television set?" _

"Actually, the truth is..." John fiddled with the dials, clicking the calibration from 6-2-5 to 6-2-6. It should have turned it on, which would give a heaping portion of credence to John's story. Shifting the sub-space translator node into the low-mid position, he said a quick prayer...

_Please work. Please work. _  
  
Dryly, Freddie scoffed, "Did you build this yourself?" as nothing at all occurred. "It's liable to belch dust before it creates music."

"I'm gonna explain, I promise. It's just that I'm from an alternate universe..." The truth slipped past his lips has he re-calibrated, trying 6-7-6 instead. Normally, that would be too high, especially with the translator node where it was. Maybe _too high _was just right for the Iota-Universe, though? "I was going to show you--hoping to take you back... There's this place where Queen made it, Freddie."

"Oh dear," Freddie drawled.

"Give me a minute," John snapped.

It had to work. It _had to! _

"How do you know about Queen?" Freddie asked. John briefly looked over his shoulder, to find Freddie peering down his nose. "I've not told anyone about the name. You've been breaking into my house. Looking at my sketches!"

The stray thought that this Freddie was also paranoid touched on John's thoughts as he tried to troubleshoot. "No, you must have told me--"

"I don't even _know you!" _

John sighed, resigning himself to another failure. He could try another approach tomorrow, of course. And the next day if he had to. And then the day after that. He started to wonder if perhaps he'd have to rebuild the machine! That'd give him an excuse to see if remaining awake for multiple days in a row would allow him to move past the same stretch of twenty-four hours, but was it _worth the trouble? _

He wasn't sure he liked this Freddie.

As John fiddled with the calibration, something slammed into the side of his head. The force caused him to spin around in a half circle and collapse onto the dead machine. As he lost consciousness, Freddie raised the two-by-four in his hands for another attack...

That was the first time John died.

Then his alarm buzzed.

"Ow," John grumbled. Sitting up and kicking off his sheets, he rubbed his unbruised temple, gritting his teeth. Though the pain was gone, the memory caused more than a couple tears.

He never bothered Freddie again.

\---

**2019**

Roger could no longer struggle. Though his lungs reflexively tried to suck in just the barest hint of oxygen, he could no longer breathe. Though not one for giving up, he had to admit that this was over.

All he could think about was how wrong it felt to see that glimpse into John's mistake. How could he possibly have lived the same day over and over without going insane?

And Freddie...

That monster wasn't Freddie.

_You wasted your time, Deaky, _Roger lamented. _You should have stayed._

_You have witnessed, _the creature said, squeezing Roger tighter and tighter until his ribs cracked and snapped. Choking with pain, Roger's vision closed in until the lack of oxygen dragged him into a surprisingly peaceful demise.


	6. Patched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All is not lost.

_A dozen, a hundred, a thousand_  
All struck from existence  
Within them the pulse that drove Life  
Erased from reality with a single act of love...  
Reset. Clean the pallet.  
Wash away the blood and start over.  
  
**2019**  
  
Unlike Brian and Roger, John had the ability to run.

His knees still ached a bit, and his lungs protested from years of smoking, but he still did his very best to escape. Of course he knew it wouldn't be enough, but terror was and would always remain an exceptionally powerful motivator.

He and Lambda-John always theorized that there would be some sort of entity--a time-space warden, perhaps--that would manage the layered universe cluster in which they lived. In the rare occasions he was able to get through to his home universe, he and Lambda tried to fit their experiences into a sort of _mold _which might define the dangers of reality-hopping.   
  
John always hated calling it reality-hopping. Lambda didn't seem to mind.   
  
There were such tiny differences between them that all added up into a whole new person--

**1993 (Iota-Universe) / 2005 (Theta-Universe)**

"Pretty sure it's official," Lambda said. "With your universe resetting every night once you fall asleep, there's no way for me to--" He shook his head. The picture on the portal fizzled, static overtaking the image for several long seconds. Theta feared the conversation was over, but he bumped the power up a bit, and Lambda's face came back into focus. "--I think I'll have to die first."

"I think you're right," Theta said, sighing. He tried to smile, but couldn't quite get his face to cooperate. "How's super-stardom?"

"I... Uh. I couldn't do it. It wasn't what I thought it would be. I'm..."

"You're different," Theta said. "Iota's Freddie was different, too. He's not--He's not Freddie at all."   
  
"Oh?" Lambda asked.   
  
Theta couldn't seem to ever tell Lambda what this Freddie was like. Saying it out loud would make it real, he supposed. In the end, he said, "I gave up. It'd be pointless anyway, wouldn't it?"

"I'm afraid so," Lambda admitted. "We're about to lose the transmission. I'll check the machine every day at 8:00am."

"It won't be every day," Theta said.

"I know. But I'll be here."

\---

**2019**

The Warden finally had him cornered. _John, _it said. _You know this is what must happen._

"I know," John replied. "Tell me it won't hurt."

_It must hurt. You've scarred the time-stream. It must hurt. _

John knew that, too.

John continued hiding between the laundry hamper and the scaffolding. The Warden could have found him any time it wanted, honestly.

_You want to know why, _The Warden said.

"That'd be nice," John replied.

_You called him Lambda. His death caused the scar, which wended its way through six distinct realities. The cracks spread from there. Every universe in your cluster is falling apart. Trillions of trillions will be wiped from existence. Your loophole is fatal for countless innocents. _

"I didn't know."   
  
_You couldn't have known. Even I didn't know. _The Warden peered around a strut, its eyeless face focusing on John. _There will be a reward on the other side. As you humans say, you've provided some valuable troubleshooting assistance. We will close the gaps. This will never happen again. _

"A reward," John muttered.

_Yes. Perhaps not what you hoped for, but a reward nevertheless. I will make it quick. That I can do. _

With tears streaming down his face, John nodded.

The pain was instant and intense, but as promised, mercifully quick.

\---

**1969--Omega-One-Universe**

The downpour woke him, the freezing cold water easing the pain.

"Did you do anything fun with yourself?" a familiar voice asked. "Living the same day over and over, and all. You must have done something stupid."

John opened gummy eyes. Rain-blurred and sore as they were, he could still recognize Roger and Brian, standing over him. The latter wore concern on his young face. His dark curls were entirely straightened thanks to the storm. "What--"

"Did you do anything stupid--" Roger started.

"That's not what he bloody meant, and you know it," Brian said, holding out his hand. John took it. "Before you arrived, Rog and I found a newspaper. It's April third, 1969. We were hoping you could explain."

John laughed as Brian helped right him. His shoes slipped in the mud, and he took both of them down to the muddy ally floor. Not one to be left out of such gatherings, Roger flopped down next to them, splashing them both. "Gotta admit," he said. "It's nice not having to pee all the time."

"Shut it, Rog," Brian replied. "John. Do you know--"

"So," a rather posh, flute-like voice interrupted. "Dearest Deaky. I hear you broke time and space just to get to me."

Freddie stood over them, his broad smile revealing his teeth, long hair covering one eye.   
  
"Freddie?" Brian and Roger said in sync."  
  
"How are you--" John started, then he realized. "The reward."

"The Warden asked if I'd help," Freddie said. "Plucked me from the afterlife, he did. With my permission, of course. My dearest Jim left to fend for himself--at least for now." He dramatically swept his hand over his forehead. "You've done quite a number on reality, John."

"I didn't mean to."

Freddie plopped himself in the mud among them. Somehow he managed to remain beautiful, even soaked by the torrential rain. He reached out, taking John's hand in his. "Why didn't you tell me, John?" he asked.

"Because--you--"

He couldn't find the words.

"Come now," Freddie said. He glanced at Brian. "He was willing to destroy multiple universes to tell me he loved me, but he's a bit tongue-tied now. It's all right."

"What?" Roger asked.   
  
John pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked at Freddie.

"The Warden created a new universe," Freddie explained. "We're free to do what we want. Love who we want. Re-create Queen... Or not. Become immortal all over again. John had to be removed entirely from the cluster so it could be patched. He should have known..." Freddie gave his hand a squeeze, taking John gently by the chin and tipping it upwards. "There's only four of us who ever could have worked together. And we're right here."   
  
_There is something ethereal_  
In the spaces between.  
Marvel at the bright wonder you behold--only once  
Once. Only once.  
Don't reach too high  
And pray for those who have destroyed their wings

_\--Hymn of the Broken Cluster_

**Epilogue**

**2019--Theta Universe**

"This is Amy Mattigan reporting for Channel 8 News on site at the Amalie Arena in Florida.

After a crazy news night last week where multiple eye-witnesses reported the return of what seemed to be John Deacon--The bass player for Queen up until his split with the band almost twenty years ago--authorities are reporting that both he and his two bandmates--Roger Taylor and Brian May--have been found dead.   
  
Their current front-man, Adam Lambert, tells Channel 8 that they seemed to have just disappeared from backstage, and weren't found for several hours.

The families of the victims have of course been contacted, and have jointly released the following statement:   
  
'We appreciate the outpouring of love from Queen fans throughout the world. While we look for answers, we appreciate your respect and privacy during this trying time.'"


End file.
